In 2022, I wrote a screenplay – “Andy” – about an older, lonely woman getting a robot carer – Andy – sent by her son, whose life is hectic and who has too little time to spare for a solo aging parent. I made the short in the USA and in 2024 after meeting and working with young Actor/Producer/Director Jason Farries, we collaborated on the feature length script and set out to make the feature.
Getting enough investment for an independent feature film, even for established, successful Producers is near impossible without some industry participation. So – unwilling to abandon what I believe to be an important story for the human species, we decided to go ahead and make the film that we could with a small investment from a generous friend, a willing and wonderful young crew and some very talented actors.
Jason and I still wanted to make the long version and hoped that this proof of concept production would entice some industry investment and held off self distributing.
However this week, the BBC came along with an alarmingly similar series on the subject. We decided to release film immediately on YouTube, with its massive reach and huge popularity and this is where the film is available to be seen now.
There are so many similarities in the BBC series,to our film it is quite astonishing. However the BBC, with its much larger assets has been able to produce a series with a plot full of similar characters, circumstances and story. There is one major difference as far as I can see. In our story the AI robot, Andy gets an upgrade to artificial empathy – he wants to be human….. and I believe this is possibly the next step in our human story. Elon Musk one of the architects of current AI, dismisses empathy as a human weakness. I think he is wrong and believe it will be a necessary component of AI, with all the complications it will bring.
Furthermore already there are the humanoid robots being developed in China, to counter human loneliness and of course robots are already doing many factory jobs there. What will the workers do? There have been many films made on the subject made by some of the great Directors. Remember Hal in Stanley Kubrick’s :“2001- a Space Odyssey”. We should take notice, is it a possibility – robots overtaking humans? Or just science fiction. What do you think?
Professor Stephen Hawking warned against AI’s effect on humanity
“the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race_
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